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High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless hall of air.
Up, up, the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No. 412 Squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941.

P/O Magee was tragically killed in a mid-air collision in a Spitfire on a training flight. He is buried in Scopwick village cemetry, Lincolnshire, and I was privileged to have been able to take 3 Canadian aircraft enthusiasts to visit the burial site when I was posted near there, a very emotional moment as they had no idea they were going to be there.

Ive allways liked this poem esp. the second verse.


The Charge Of The Light Brigade


by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854



Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

I've been given a rollicking by the manager of the poet "Tony Wyton" for not attributing the above verse to him, which I now acknowledge. Every time I saw it printed it was always "Anon", except for one occasion when someone else claimed it, but I knew that wasn't true. Happy to put the situation right for such a talented wordsmith.

THE GREEN BERET MEN
Author: Rod Spinks
former Royal Marine 1957/68.

A word in the house, a stroke of a pen
The country disbanded a fine body of men
With fighting finesse and fitness supreme
The creme de la creme wore berets of Green.

Their training was tough, it had to be so
How to fight with a knife and kill with one blow
Salerno, Vaagso, Dieppe and St Nazaire
With impossible odds the Commando's were there.

Their raids so successful that once Hitler said
"If captured no prisoners I want these men dead"
To late he discovered his men were not keen
To battle with these Marines who wore berets of Green.

On D-Day at Sword beach they were there to the fore
As they jumped from the landing craft and made for the shore
Their contempt for the Nazi's was very plain to see
For they wore not steel helmets but berets of Green.

When it was all over and the fighting no more
The first that was disbanded was the Green beret Corp's
Who went back to their Shires, their Towns and their Glens
A real fine body of gentle self disciplined men.

As the years roll on by they still meet it is said
To talk, toast the Queen and remember their dead
Whose memorial stands at the foot of the Ben
Where they fought for the right to be Green beret men.

For our freedom of movement our freedom of speech
To those who come after , this gospel I preach
A word in the house a stroke of the pen these cannot wipe out
The debt to those brave Green beret men.

PER MARE PER TERRAM.

Lost the plot again fellahs, the "Last Man in the Air Force" was written by Peter Wyton, not Tony Wyton. Used to know a Tony Wootton and my fingers got ahead of my grey matter. What a chunk.

Monumental Inscription on a grave in Rake Lane Cemetry.


Dear Ancestor

Your Headstone stands among the rest,
Neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished,marble stone.

It reaches out to all who cares
It is to late to mourn.
You did not know that i exist
You died and i was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh,in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not are own.

Dear ancestor the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday i would find this spot
And come to visit you.

Author Unknown.

**...................................................................**

Are you o.k Bandy? Beginning to get a wee bit worried!!

Fine thanks granny, just seen your post. When things get a bit too hairy on wiki I just take a blow until things calm down a bit, better than legging it altogether. Some of the sheer nastiness on here gets on my wick sometimes.

Bandy you can ride the storms. Thought you might like this:

"The Storm"
by Walter de la Mare

First there were two of us, then there were three of us,
Then there was one bird more,
Four of us--wild white sea-birds,
Treading the ocean floor;
And the wind rose, and the sea rose,
To the angry billows? roar--
With one of us--two of us--three of us--four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.

Soon there were five of us, soon there were nine of us,
And lo! in a trice sixteen!
And the yeasty surf curdled over the sands,
The gaunt grey rocks between;
And the tempest raved, and the lightning?s fire
Struck blue on the spindrift hoar--
And on four of us--ay, and on four times four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.

And our sixteen waxed to thirty-two,
And they to past three score--
A wild, white welter of winnowing wings,
And ever more and more;
And the winds lulled, and the sea went down,
And the sun streamed out on high,
Gilding the pools and the spume and the spars
?Neath the vast blue deeps of the sky;

And the isles and the bright green headlands shone,
As they?d never shone before,
Mountains and valleys of silver cloud,
Wherein to swing, sweep, soar--
A host of screeching, scolding, scrabbling
Sea-birds on the shore--
A snowy, silent, sun-washed drift
Of sea-birds on the shore.

Could never remember who wrote this poem , but have managed to find it. One of my favourites, meaningful to most and quite short:

So We'll Go No More A Roving
by
Lord Byron
1817



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I.
So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.


II.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.


III.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

Thanks Granny. Not heard that before. Very good

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.


The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

by W. H. Auden

RE: WAR POEM by FiremanFil

Nice! Very evocative! I thought I was reading an actual WW1 or 2 poem there. Y'know, written around the time of the World Wars? It's got of a flavour of Wilfred Owen to it... "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity..."

Well done!

A Soldier Died Today by A. Lawrence Vaincourt.


He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in, and the deeds that he had done.
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife.
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state.
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young.
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land,
a guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives,
are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them, for it was so long ago,
that the old Bill's of our Country went to battle, but we know,
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend,
his home, his kin and Country, and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part,
is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
"Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today."

There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.